(Assisted by Guggenheim Press Notes).
Richard Pousette-Dart (1916-1992), an early Abstract Expressionist, was one of the first artists to use large-scale canvasses and influenced Jackson Pollack’s large-scale murals, among works of other contemporaries and protégées. His rough-hewn works, with hints of Pointillism, Native Americanism, and African motifs, emphasized gesture and thickly layered paint. “Pousette-Dart's lifelong belief was that the abstract symbols of painting could reveal universal truths by suggesting the mysterious realm of the spirit.” (Guggenheim Website). Pousette-Dart was active in New York in the 1940’s, and Peggy Guggenheim gave him his own exhibition in her New York gallery in 1947. Pousette-Dart was inspired by Jung, Freud, and Oriental philosophy, and his abstract symbols were to reveal the truth of the human spirit.

In 1951, Pousette-Dart moved to Suffern, NY, for solitude in creativity, as he turned to his “white” paintings with gouache-oil and pencil-graphite. In the 1960’s, color and lyrical abstraction exuded from his oeuvres. He is said to have expanded on Impressionism with abstract thought and gestures. These works are bright, dynamic, and infused with textured tones. Pousette-Dart’s works are internationally renowned. I found his works to resemble the fragmented tiny dots of light of Pointillists, Seurat and Signac (“Lost in the Beginnings of Infinity”), as well as the exaggerated and surreal heads painted by Picasso (“Head of a Woman”). I found additional stylistic similarities to Paul Klee, Georges Braque, and Joan Miro.